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Matthiette went to the hut's door: her hands fell irresolutely upon the rough surface of it and lay still for a moment. Then with the noise of a hoarse groan the door swung inward, and the light guttered in a swirl of keen morning air, casting convulsive shadows upon her lifted countenance, and was extinguished. She held out her arms in a gesture that was half maternal. "Raoul!" she murmured.
He came toward her. "I bid you go," he said. "Matthiette, it is my duty to bid you go, and it is your duty to obey." She smiled wistfully through unshed tears. "Man's wisdom!" said Matthiette. "I think that it is not my duty. And so I disobey you, dear, this once, and no more hereafter." "And yet last night " Raoul began. "Last night," said she, "I thought that I was strong.
Matthiette, I love you too dearly to deceive you in, at all events, this matter, and I have learned by hard knocks that we of gentle quality may not lightly follow our own inclinations. Happiness is a luxury which the great can very rarely afford. Granted that you have an aversion to this marriage.
"Mademoiselle," he said, dully, "I may not avail myself of your tenderness of heart; that you have come to comfort me in my sorrow is a deed at which, I think, God's holy Angels must rejoice: but I cannot avail myself of it." "Raoul, Raoul," she said, "do you think that I have come in pity!" "Matthiette," he returned, "your uncle spoke the truth.
Pierre may sleep undisturbed; and the pigs will have a new sty. My faith, it is quite affecting! And so," Sieur Raymond summed it up, "you two young fools may bid adieu, once for all, while I contemplate this tapestry." He strolled to the end of the room and turned his back. "Admirable!" said he; "really now, that leopard is astonishingly lifelike!" Raoul came toward Matthiette.
The Demoiselle Matthiette at seventeen was very tall, and was as yet too slender for perfection of form, but her honey-colored hair hung heavily about the unblemished oval of a countenance whose nose alone left something to be desired; for this feature, though well shaped, was unduly diminutive.
She obeyed, and brought to Manuel's court her husband and their two boys, the younger of whom rose later to be Pope of Rome. Manuel gave the miller the vacant fief of Montors; and thereafter you could nowhere have found a statelier fine lady than the Countess Matthiette de Montors.
The idea of such an occurrence, combined with a fit of coughing which now came upon him, drew tears to the Sieur d'Arnaye's eyes. "Pardon me," said he, when he had recovered his breath, "if I speak somewhat brutally to maiden ears." Matthiette sighed. "Indeed," said she, "you have spoken very brutally!" She rose from her seat, and went to the Sieur d'Arnaye.
It is with them we have here to do. The Episode Called The Conspiracy of Arnaye Policy Tempered with Singing "And so," said the Sieur d'Arnaye, as he laid down the letter, "we may look for the coming of Monsieur de Puysange to-morrow." The Demoiselle Matthiette contorted her features in an expression of disapproval. "So soon!" said she. "I had thought "
Through the open window came the voice of one singing to the demure accompaniment of a lute. "Hey?" said the Sieur d'Arnaye. "Now, may I never sit among the saints," said the Sieur d'Arnaye, "if that is not the voice of Raoul de Prison, my new page." "Hush," Matthiette whispered. "He woos my maid, Alys. He often sings under the window, and I wink at it."
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